Thread: S10 T5 to early bellhousing

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I picked up a Borg Warner T5 from an S10 over Christmas that will likely be used in an upcoming engine swap. I’m pretty limited to using an earlier style Chevy bell housing on the project. The input shaft on the S10 T5 is longer than the Saginaw/Muncie input shaft.



From what I’ve researched there are 2 way to go mating them up. The first is to use an adapter plate that spaces the transmission back. The second involves shortening the end of the input shaft and extending the splines. Either case requires shortening the bearing retainer.

Personally I’m leaning towards modifying the input shaft. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with modifying the input shaft or using the adapter plate.


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You haven't ever cut splines on an shaft or axle have you????????


Use the spacer-----------


Mike, I'm sorry if the multiply question marks and dashes upset you as it has just been pointed out in a PM to me that its bad internet ettique and manners to do that. I have a problem with the tendons in my right arm/hand and I have a tendency to linger with my finger a millisecond on the last key and I get multiples.


If it was just an issue of machining off some of the splines it would be simple to do but adding length to them is pretty much an insanely difficult thing to do.


The spacer you need ( haven't used one for 7 or 8 years) used to be about $70 but much more now. Pretty straight forward to make one with a couple machines--you'll need a piece of inch thick alum plate and cut a recess for the trans to center on back side plus an out cropping on the forward side to center in bell hole

when i put the 5 speed behind my 351 i did not know that i had gotten a 6 cylinder bell housing .. my trans would not pull up flush .. i had to cut 1/2 inch off the input shaft and grind 3/8 inch off the clutch splines .. that was 6 years ago.

i would think a spacer would be a no brainer . no labor involved.

Originally Posted by shine

i would think a spacer would be a no brainer . no labor involved.

and no doubt someone probably makes one ...

No offence taken Jerry.

In answer to your question about splining a shaft, no I haven’t, and frankly would not have thought about doing it had I not come across an couple of posts on other sites were guys had used die grinders to extend the splines. I’m not sure exactly how they went about it but here are my thoughts.


I would not even consider trying it free hand. I was thinking I could make a sleeve that just fit the input shaft with a slot cut to the right width to act as a guide and a locking bolt to hold it in place. I would use a small cutoff wheel to on the die grinder to extend the splines. I’ve got a few old input shafts sitting around and figured I grab one to try it out before I actually did the T5 shaft.


The adapter plates are up in the $170 range now and would be a no brainer if I was building a customer car ……..the amount of time I’ll have in doing this would outweigh the cost of the adapter. Since this is a case where it’s for one of my projects and I have a bunch of time anyway, I’m still leaning towards giving it a shot.


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look carefully at the shape of the spline--they aren't exactly square , and if the spines aren't perfect they either won't support the clutch or will bind up on a tight spot and the disc won't float away from the flywheel during disengagement.
If its not a high hp/tq engine you can just relieve the input shaft to a diameter slightly less than the clutch dish spline and shorten the front end. Make sure that the nose doesn't push solid against crank or you'll wipe out thrust bearing.


Are you getting any Illinois weather down there with this storm package?

As far as the weather, it’s definitely a lot more like Illinois than Arizona right now ……into the 20s at night and the last couple of days 40s during the day.

I’m probably going to start on the splines first, that way if I can’t get them to work or screw them up, I haven’t shortened the input shaft and can still go with the adapter.

The engine that’s going in front of it is a 283 and the plan is to drop the whole mess into an 87 Ram 50 that has a 3.91 open rear end.



With the light weight and deep gears I figure keeping the tire size reasonable and doing the “adult driving” thing it will hopefully last, at least until my Grandsons reach driving age. Hopefully by that time I’ll have a spare one sitting under the bench and they can contemplate what happens when they do stupid stuff while laying on a creeper elbow deep in 90 weight


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Originally Posted by Mike P

With the light weight and deep gears I figure keeping the tire size reasonable and doing the “adult driving” thing it will hopefully last, at least until my Grandsons reach driving age. Hopefully by that time I’ll have a spare one sitting under the bench and they can contemplate what happens when they do stupid stuff while laying on a creeper elbow deep in 90 weight


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Sounds like a great plan.. I wonder what they'll say about the "smell" ??

Figured I'd do a quick update. The adapter won.

I got around today and pulled the bearing retainer off to take a look at the input shaft. The shaft necks down slightly past the existing splines, meaning that the extended splines would be very shallow. As I said at least a couple of guys seem to have gotten away with it extending the splines, but I'd be afraid to trust it.........I just hate that walking home thing.


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The spacer sounds like the best option to me. Unless you know a guy with some machines, then have him make a couple more spacers, and you may be able to pedal them and recoop some monies?

I bought a spacer from speedway and put a t-5 behind my flathead bolted the spacer on went right together, I also did some mods to the TOB so I ran a chevy tranny with a modified s-10 TOB everything else was ford stuff.

Chris,